Bauhaus

Bela Lugosi's Dead [12-inch] (1979)

eatdogs

Bela Lugosi’s Dead

is the first single from the legendary UK Gothic/Post-Punk band Bauhaus. First

released in 1979, this one track paved the way for the band and became

legendary in the Gothic Rock community. It’s pretty much the proto-tune for an

entire scene and Bauhaus is often considered the first band to bring the dark

and gloomy style to the forefront arguably. Of course you can’t discount other

notable acts like Joy Division and Siouxsie and the Banshees for example in similarities,

but the dark overtones and stylistic choices the band presented here helped

establish the overall look and feel.

What’s funny in hindsight is lead singer Peter Murphy saying

about the track, “The song was written to be tongue-in-cheek, but since the

group performed it with "naive seriousness", that is how the audience

understood it.”

The track is a long burner, clocking in over nine minutes,

but it’s a journey into the void and has this very scary vibe to it filling up

a room with dreary atmosphere. The drumming pitter patters like drops of water

in an underground cave, the guitars screech as if old doors were opening, bass

rumbles like the beating of a heart in panic, and of course the swell of noise

builds up to the epic climax of Murphy crying repeatedly, “BEEEELLLLA, BEEEELLLLA, BEEEELLLLA!”

This should have been the theme song for the Castlevania

series!

Lyrically the song is cinematic in its descriptions with

lines such as, “The bats have left the

bell tower/The victims have been bled/Red velvet lines the black box.” You

can almost picture an old grainy black and white film playing in the corner of

a darkened club with many goths standing around smoking and trying to dance

like Ian Curtis. The dead fly dance mind you!

The track was always a live spectacle and probably the most well-known

attempt was played at Coachella 2005 when Murphy hung upside down for the

entire duration singing and swinging his arms like a freakin’ vampire. Yeah,

that’s pretty punk I’d say.

Two other tracks accompany the single. Side-B has a rare cut

titled “Boys” and it sounds almost Glam-Rock. Sorta T-rex crossed with Bowie.

The third track was untitled at the time and played in short demo form, but

eventually became their next single “Dark Entries”, a precursor to their

excellent debut album, In the Flat Field.

So you’ve probably heard the name, seen the

bands industrial face logo, or perhaps a patch on someone’s jacket, but now’s your

chance to actually give them a listen. Start here and then explore on if your

dark desires call to you. Dig it…